Friedrichsbau Bühl

She was here at a good time and she had a good time when she was here

The installation She was here at a good time and she had a good time when she was here, at the Friedrichsbau in Bühl, makes use of fragments of a now historical structure: windowpanes from the Haus des Lehrers on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz. The installation uses original components from the building’s upper stories to reconstruct facade, floor and ceiling. These are rotated ninety degrees within the space, turning the windows into a horizontal surface that precisely reproduces the rhythm of the panes in their various sizes and colors. Two videos are projected onto the panes, passing through them and reflecting on the glass. One camera, mounted on the tip of a demolition excavator, captures whirling images of crumbling walls, tumbling and bouncing chunks of masonry—the slow disintegration of a building. The rotating camera angle erases the precise distinction between up and down, a distinction that has already vanished in the exhibition space reflected in the windowpanes. The second video projection shows the intent face of the excavator operator as he both observes and controls the machine doing the demolition, his gaze mirroring the building’s destruction.

She was here at a good time and she had a good time when she was here

Friedrichsbau Bühl

She was here at a good time and she had a good time when she was here at the Friedrichsbau in Bühl.
Original facade sections from the twelfth and thirteenth stories of the Haus des Lehrers (Alexanderplatz, Berlin), one piece of floor, one piece of ceiling, vertical video projection.